How Can You Prepare Managers to Support Training?

By Craig Perrin This is the fourth of my five-part discussion with Kim Stafford, AchieveGlobal’s Director of International Development. This week we ask, “How can you prepare managers to support training?” CRAIG: If we want managers to support training, we have to stop shaming them. Instead, we should reduce their coaching responsibilities by changing the way we train. Rather than big training events followed by inconsistent or short-lived coaching, we need shorter increments of training over longer periods. Instead of a two-day employee workshop every six months, what if we had a one-hour session with an immediate application assignment and ongoing collaboration with peers, every week for two months? What if we leveraged all the technology now available – Internet, intranet, YouTube-type video, online social networking? What if trainers helped peers to coach each other? What if we developed dedicated coaches – people who like to coach, with the time to observe, provide feedback, and recognize employees? This kind of training isn’t idle fantasy. It’s already here in many organizations, functioning very well, and taking this pressure off managers to be everything to every employee. KIM: That’s one approach, yet it’s not always realistic. For better or worse – and I think it’s better – most organizations will continue to deliver traditional classroom training. As a long-time former trainer and director of training, I’ve seen the power of classroom learning. The classroom remains the number one place where skill development takes place. Larry Bossidy, author of Execution, says “Every leader and supervisor needs to be a teacher; classroom learning should be about giving [both managers and employees] the tools that they need.” People are worth the effort it takes to develop them through formal classroom training and skilled coaching. Dofasco Steel’s tag line is: “Our product is steel. Our strength is people.” In my view, the best way to improve human performance is to prepare managers to coach and then to measure how well they coach. That’s also the best way to reduce turnover and move toward key business goals. I’ll leave you with this thought: The main way employees – whether managers or individual contributors – learn new skills is through training, and the main way they grow and develop is through coaching.